Insurgent Veterinarian Ted Yoho Beats Top Planned Parenthood Foe in Florida Primary

Florida congressional candidate Ted Yoho (R) <a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=446227005407642&set=a.351473681549642.80965.199941253369553&type=3&theater">Yoho for Congress</a>/Facebook

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Updated, 12:38 a.m., 8/15/12: Although Politico initially declared Stearns the loser, the incumbent has yet to concede. But he trails Yoho by 829 votes with 100 percent of the precincts reporting.

Update II, 1:27 p.m., 8/15/12: It’s official: Stearns has conceded. Yoho will face Gaillot in November.

On Tuesday, in perhaps the biggest surprise of the 2012 cycle to date, Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, a well-funded 12-term incumbent, lost his Republican house primary to Ted Yoho, a little-known large-animal veterinarian with no political experience. Stearns had expanded his profile over the last year by instigating a congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood, and held a 16 to 1 campaign cash advantage.

So how’d Yoho do it? Rumors of an FBI investigation into Stearns’ conduct (for allegedly bribing another candidate to get out of the race) probably had some effect. Yoho also had some tea party support, although his platform—fighting “socialism,” cutting taxes, curbing spending—didn’t really distinguish him from the competition. In the wake of Tuesday’s result, Yoho’s only television ad—in which three men in suits (representing big government) eat out of a pig trough—has been the focus of most of the press attention:

The “Pigs” ad is something of a mixed metaphor, since tea partiers’ qualm with Washington isn’t that congressmen are pork; it’s that they vote for it. For that reason, Yoho’s earlier pitch, in which he talks with an actual George W. Bush impersonator about an upcoming fundraiser, is much more effective:

If that doesn’t work, here’s a song about Yoho’s campaign—released by Yoho’s campaign:

Now that he’s won the nomination, Yoho’s path to Washington is relatively smooth. The third district is solidly Republican, and the new Democratic nominee, J.R. Gaillot, has barely updated his campaign website (the “issues” page contains mostly dead links, although Gaillot tweets that he’ll update it soon). Still, progressives can rest a little easier knowing they won’t have Cliff Stearns to kick around any more.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate